In Deuteronomy the laws about slaves that we also see in Exodus are repeated. They certainly have a definite meaning in the context of the clan-tribal society in which they arose...
In Deuteronomy the laws about slaves that we also see in Exodus are repeated. They certainly have a definite meaning in the context of the clan-tribal society in which they arose. The point is that debt slavery could easily lead to very serious property stratification, and then social stratification, which, under conditions of predominantly communal landholding, would inevitably have produced social instability. Slaves who, in the end, would have had nothing left to lose, and in large numbers besides, could have posed a serious public danger.
Contrary to ideas that are fairly widespread today, slave labor in antiquity, when it was effective at all, was effective only in certain cases and under very definite conditions, which did not exist in Hebrew society. That is why mass slaveholding was a relatively uncommon and rather local phenomenon in antiquity. The Hebrews never had it. In Hebrew society, slavery always remained domestic and patriarchal, when a slave was regarded as a member of the household, though not an equal one. His status resembled that of an underage member of the family or of a large patriarchal clan.
It is no accident that in Hebrew "slave" and "adolescent" are called by the same word. If slavery had become mass slavery, the consequences would have been completely unpredictable. The laws about slaves made it possible to avoid this.
There was, however, something else as well: the understanding that a person is not simply an element of society, which completely defines him and his existence. A person cannot and must not be a slave of the socioeconomic order in which he has to live. Not even because that order is bad, although in the fallen world it cannot be good in any case; here the only possible choice is between bad and very bad.
A person is first of all the image of God, and only afterward a subject of any impersonal relations whatever. Debts, of course, must be repaid, but a person must not lose himself as the image of God, nor his freedom before God and people, because of debts that for some objective reason he cannot repay. Objective because a normal, healthy person is able in seven years to work off any debt that bears at least some relation to his abilities. If he has not managed to do this in seven years, then he will not manage to do it later either. To leave a person a slave until the end of his life means to ignore the image of God in him, and this the Torah naturally cannot allow. Hence the compromise it proposes between the demands of society and the freedom a person needs for a full life before God.
15 Orders concerning the release of debts every seventh year, Deu 15:1-6.
Concerning lending, Deu 15:7-11.
Concerning the release of servants, Deu 15:12-18.
Concerning the firstlings, Deu 15:19-23.
15:11 The poor shall never cease - God by his providence will so order it, partly for the punishment of your disobedience, and partly for the trial and exercise of your obedience to him and charity to your brother.